Posted on 12/28/2017 2:06:32 PM PST by otness_e
>Ok Pondexter, which propaganda values from Starwars did we absorb?
Let’s see, there’s the idea that truths depend greatly on our point of view, which aided the Democrats during the election cycles later on with the promotion of postmodernism and various forms of nihilism.
>Wars for profit is a standard Marxist line as is denying that a Marxist is really a Marxist. Your professor lied to you. He wasn’t fooled, he was just another communist fellow traveler.
Yeah, I figured as much when he made a comment during Battleship Potemkin that implied he did adhere to Communism. However, I CAN tell you that the Politically Incorrect Guide to the 1960s made it VERY clear that there were some people who did genuinely think their actions were for peace and/or wanted to avoid the draft. To quote:
“The “Antiwar” Movement
“One of the great gifts the media gave the radical students of the 1960s was to refer to them during the Vietnam War as part of an “antiwar movement.” While there were undoubtedly some leftists who were genuine pacifists, many were motivated by a different concern: college students were given deferments from military conscription, and they hoped to end the war before they finished college and became eligable for the draft. That it was the fear of being drafted above all else that spurred radicalism is made clear by the abrupt decline in campus protests after President Nixon ended the draft in 1973.
“Furthermore, many of the “antiwar” protestors were not actually “antiwar” at all; they just supported the other side, as shown by the popular “antiwar” chant, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh. NLF is gonna win.” This was a tribute to Communist North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and his brutal armed force in South Vietnam, the National Liberation Front, also known as the Viet Cong.”
And I’ve got an aunt who was involved in the student protests and is very much liberal in her politics, including wanting to bring about gay marriage, yet not only was she NOT a Communist, but she also expressed disgust when I told her about the Democrats reneiging on their promise to stop Communism, and also was disgusted by my aforementioned film professor making anti-military statements (it helps that she knew someone who actually HAD a kid serving in combat in Iraq). Not to mention her husband, also liberal, actually witnessed first hand the Soviet atrocities and was affected quite a bit by this, realizing America’s religious freedom isn’t something to be taken for granted. So yes, I actually KNOW someone who was involved in the anti-war protests and yet WASN’T communist at all. She’d at WORST be considered a useful idiot, NOT a fellow traveler or card carrying member of the Communists.
>Is it? When dealing with a Communists the first you thing you learn is they lie about being communists. Muslims call it Taqiyya and the leftists call it entryism, but it amounts to the same of pretending to be something other than they are.
I’ve been through high-school and college, and I’ve witnessed the brainwashing first hand, like how women couldn’t get an education until the 1960s, or how apparently the French Revolution was the best thing since sliced bread, or how free sex was the way to go and how it was “bad” that the Equal Rights Amendment never passed. Not to mention I’ve read articles and comments on Breitbart and PJMedia of how kids when coming back from College were completely different from when they went there, going from conservative to liberal. So no, I am far TOO aware of how education is brainwashing kids. We even got a hint at that with the 2012 election results where some kids were actually chanting Karl Marx’s name in front of the White House.
Yes, except his interviews, director’s commentaries, heck, even the 1973 draft makes very clear WHAT his intentions were.
And so far as the Stormtroopers looking like Nazis, don’t think for one second that isn’t used to demonize Americans by comparing them to Nazis. Paul Verhoeven did a similar trick with Starship Troopers when he made the good guys look like a bunch of Nazis, which he made very clear was his intent.
And that if anything is EXACTLY why I fear he may have been successful, actually. If he was on the nose, he wouldn’t have been nearly as successful, and his propaganda mission would have been Dead on Arrival.
I just got back from the theater and your second impression perfectly sums up my opinion of it. They lost me at the opening scroll with “RESISTANCE” in all caps. From that point on I was cheering for the bad guys which I’ve never done in a Star Wars movie. What an annoying PC eye roller this movie is. The problem with PC is it creates predictability and banality because the rulebook can’t be defied. And it causes you to sense the mind of the creator behind the characters rather than the characters having a convincing life of their own.
I’m willing to overlook leftist bias as long as they get the art right. For instance Apocalypse Now is one of my favorites. Incidentally, if you watch Apocalypse Now Redux you will see that Coppola wisely cut out lots of scenes for the theatrical release, specifically scenes which oversold the leftist message. It was plenty leftist as it was, but would have been unbearable if he hadn’t used some taste and reined it in.
Rey is the young Jedi who instantly is perfect at everything.
She is the most boring character in the movie. It would have been interesting for her to join Kylo.
If the resistance has everything they need with one force sensitive chick and a broken light saber, what kept them from winning before?
Stupid lines like that made me cringe. Plus, we don’t win by killing, but by saving the ones we love crap? You win by killing your enemy!
I’m rooting for the Empire, First Order, second time around or whatever their name is in the next movie.
Once you know the writer’s intentions, there’s no way you can use your own will over theirs. They created, so they get to wheel it, with our own wills meaning nothing.
And yeah, I wasn’t fond of Apocalypse Now, much. As it is, Lucas definitely was trying to push leftism in Star Wars in a subdued manner to subtly manipulate people. I fear he succeeded. Just like how the universities brainwashed kids. That’s also why I’m rooting for the Empire now. Do you really think, even if they were depicted as the heroes, that I’d root for a bunch of Communists?
Don’t know about the First Order (unlike the Empire, the First Order actually WAS based on the Nazis, specifically ODESSA. Of course, if Disney had just released the stupid Making of The Force Awakens book instead of cancelling it/putting it through development hell, I probably WOULD have gotten a LOT more intel on that front to make my own determination.), but I’m certainly rooting for the Empire. Heck, I don’t even NEED this movie to root for the Empire. Lucas’ own admission that he tricked people into rooting for the Vietcong is MORE than enough to convince me to root for the so-called villains, and I don’t generally root for villains anyway.
LOL!
>Let’s see, there’s the idea that truths depend greatly on our point of view, which aided the Democrats during the election cycles later on with the promotion of postmodernism and various forms of nihilism.
Even as a kid no one took that idea seriously. We all thought Obwan was a liar.
>And I’ve got an aunt who was involved in the student protests and is very much liberal in her politics, including wanting to bring about gay marriage, yet not only was she NOT a Communist, but she also expressed disgust when I told her about the Democrats reneiging on their promise to stop Communism, and also was disgusted by my aforementioned film professor making anti-military statements (it helps that she knew someone who actually HAD a kid serving in combat in Iraq). Not to mention her husband, also liberal, actually witnessed first hand the Soviet atrocities and was affected quite a bit by this, realizing America’s religious freedom isn’t something to be taken for granted. So yes, I actually KNOW someone who was involved in the anti-war protests and yet WASN’T communist at all. She’d at WORST be considered a useful idiot, NOT a fellow traveler or card carrying member of the Communists.
Anyone who internalize the Marxist propaganda they pick up in college is a Marxist. Not wanting to apply the label doesn’t change that.
Art always comes with a message these days.
“he claimed we invaded to steal tin”
When I was in college, right around he time Star Wars came out, the talk was that the oil companies were behind the war because there were oil fields off the Vietnamese coast.
I do have to side with those saying Lucas was a bad propagandist. At least with the first three films. I don’t think ANYONE in the movie theaters saw the Empire as the United States.
"Just relax and ignore it," you mean!
Wild horses couldn't drag me into a showing of the Last Jedi, even if wild horses did drag me into the New Hope :-)
“Nietzsche’s diseased mind”
Are you joking? Let me guess, you’ve never actually read him have you?
>Even as a kid no one took that idea seriously. We all thought Obwan was a liar.
Really? My dad, who is fairly conservative, actually DID think that was words of wisdom there, certainly moreso than the “Only a Sith Deals in Absolutes” thing he said in Revenge of the Sith (where all of us in my family, me, dad, and mom, were dumbfounded and baffled by the line, and definitely weren’t fond of that line at all.). And did you think Obi-Wan was a villain? No? Then it ultimately means nothing. Just because YOU thought Obi Wan was a liar doesn’t mean everyone else did. In fact, I’ve seen plenty of internet posts where they were utterly baffled about Obi Wan’s statement in ROTS and seemed to view him as a Saint, could do no wrong before then. Heck, here’s one example of someone who obviously DID take inspiration from that quote, and she’s giving child rearing advice of all things: https://en.paperblog.com/life-is-never-black-and-white-1211448/ Also this: https://shadowproof.com/2012/03/21/perceptions-and-point-of-view/ Heck, even Christians are using that quote as indication that it’s sagely advice: https://wherethewind.com/2017/01/09/beloved-gods-point-of-view-part-1-of-8/ So yeah, there are a few people who DID buy into that quote, and thus DID get propagandized (I don’t BUY that quote, obviously. In fact, it just shows Obi-Wan to be a nihilist, certainly a relativist.).
>Anyone who internalize the Marxist propaganda they pick up in college is a Marxist. Not wanting to apply the label doesn’t change that.
Actually, she wouldn’t be a Marxist (for one thing, she wouldn’t have been disgusted with the Democrats basically killing off funding over Vietnam if she were a Marxist, and she certainly wouldn’t have expressed disgust towards people who mocked America’s military or, heck, even married a guy who IS anti-Marxist due to visiting the Soviet Union and getting a pretty big hint on how the KGB tried to exterminate Christians if she WERE a Marxist. I know if I were a Marxist and in her position, not only would I avoid someone like my uncle like the plague, but I’d if anything probably stab him to death for even speaking out against Marx’s views of the world, not marry that person. The closest she’s EVER gotten to showing any Communist sympathies was voting Bernie Sanders, and that’s more due to her being a Democrat, which I will concede the party as a whole has implicit Marxist principles.). It just means she was gullible enough to swallow anything from an authority figure and/or her friends. Also, I’ve been around her house, and her uncle’s house for that matter (they live in the same house, in case I wasn’t clear). She doesn’t display any Communist symbols around her house, or any Marxist symbols for that matter. I would have discerned them if she did. Hence why I called her a “useful idiot”, meaning she parroted Marxist views without even KNOWING their origin. How can one be Marxist without even knowing it? Now, Ron Radosh? That guy actually WAS a former communist, I’ll give you that, and he makes CLEAR he reformed as well. Besides, by that logic, Harry Truman and JFK must be a Marxists then, because they didn’t do a thing to stop Communists from taking over various elements of government, and even tried to demonize Joseph McCarthy for trying to expose the Communists. And this is despite their actually FIGHTING against the Communists, for that matter. I will agree with you on one thing, however, the so-called Peace Movement WAS deeply infiltrated by Marxists.
That’s just Lucas’ lack of skill as a writer. It wasn’t just a movie, not by intent anyway. People really didn’t bemoan connotations back then, people weren’t as whiny as they are now.
Maybe I’ve never actually read Nietzsche’s works directly, but I HAVE heard of what he promoted, and what he promoted is nihilism. And I do know that he has two versions of nihilism: Positive Nihilism, and Negative Nihilism. He also indicated that facts don’t exist, and not only does morality not exist, but if anything it should be abolished and that people should craft their own morality. And Nietzsche died insane, either from syphilis or something else, delusionally believing himself to be Christ.
I wouldn’t be so sure that people weren’t as whiney back then. Don’t forget, that WAS the time period where the anti-war protests and the hippie movement was going about, and a lot of the people there WERE about as whiney as, say, Occupy Wall Street. There’s a reason why the Baby Boomer Generation was generally considered the most selfish generation ever.
No they were definitely less whiny. Look at the whole discussion going on around SW now. In this modern world if you make the bad not white all the SJWs whine, but if he’s white all the anti-SJWs whine. And if it’s multiple bad guys and some are white and some aren’t BOTH sides go off. You literally can’t do anything anymore without some bunch whining. You could have entire art movements in the 70s with nobody getting their panties in a twist... maybe because during the sexual revolution lots of folks weren’t wearing any undies.
Actually, they weren’t less whiny. My mom was of that generation, and even SHE admitted they were largely whiners and selfish. If they weren’t whiney, we wouldn’t HAVE a sexual revolution and the bad things that resulted from that. We also wouldn’t have many of the problems you alluded to. Like it or not, all those stuff you mentioned stemmed directly from that time period.
Maybe the left was just as whiny, but the right wasn’t. That’s the big difference with today, both sides are nothing but whiners who get their panties in a twist over every stupid thing.
He was critical of nihilism. He thought it arose from the lack of sway that traditional religion had in European society at the time - the so called “Death of God” which he was describing not advocating. He was a defender of Western Civilization who almost singlehandedly brought Greek Studies back into vogue. He died of Syphilis which , if untreated, brings about mental breakdown in its final stages. The composer Robert Schumann died from the same thing. Oh and btw, Voltaire didn’t advocate killing people either. Not in Candide he didn’t certainly and that’s his most influential work.
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